IN life, and in football, there is plenty different for Eoin Donnelly as he gears up for another Championship campaign in the green of Fermanagh.
Just weeks before last November’s Ulster opener against Down, the Erne panel was decimated by Covid, with 10 players contracting the virus and a further seven being forced to isolate as a result ahead of a vital League clash with Clare.
With the country finding itself in the grip of a second wave, Donnelly’s job as a respiratory physiotherapist - based mainly at the Ulster and Lagan Valley hospitals - was similarly chaotic.
Eight months down the line, though, things have settled. A few significant players may have walked away from the Erne panel in the off season but there is an exciting young crop emerging and, crucially, none of the off-field drama hampering Championship preparations ahead of Saturday’s showdown with Monaghan.
“It certainly played a part but that whole situation against Clare last year, it maybe brought a lot of our younger players on, maybe brought the group a bit closer together.
“We didn’t do ourselves justice against Down, we were flat, the game ran away from us in the second half so whether Covid had an effect on our fitness, it’s up for debate.
“But injury-wise we’ve been fairly lucky this year, that’s been massive for us, and thankfully Covid hasn’t hampered us this last while either.”
Work too has returned to something approaching normal.
“Covid is obviously still there in the background, everybody is still very aware of it, but the demographic of our patients has probably changed,” he said.
“We’re not getting as many Covid patients in thankfully, it’s come right down to where you could basically count them on one hand. So you’re back to what is like pre-Covid, with busy A&E departments, busy wards…
“Hospitals are busy but they’re not Covid busy, which is a good thing.”
Having football to focus on again feels like a relief, and the pride at wearing his county colours is as strong now at 32 as it ever was - making the 160 mile round trip from his home in Carryduff to training in Fermanagh just another indication of his commitment to the cause through the years.
“I’ve just got used to it,” he says of those regular trips up and down the A4.
“When I first started playing I was a student in Belfast, I’ve never really had a year of living in Fermanagh and playing for Fermanagh. It’s always been travelling from Belfast or County Down, so you get used to it.
“You never really realise how much time you’re giving up to football until maybe last year with lockdown, when you realised how much extra time you had about the house when it wasn’t there. Some days that was a really good thing, other days you were climbing the walls.
“It maybe becomes a challenge whenever your expenses haven’t been paid or diesel prices go up, but usually it’s straightforward.”
And while players have come and gone from the Fermanagh panel during his county days, Donnelly has been an ever-present – leading the Ernemen out in the 2018 Ulster final, and bagging the precious last-gasp goal against Monaghan that got them there, among the Coa midfielder’s proudest moments.
“Just representing Fermanagh in the first instance is one of the pinnacles, any Croke Park experiences, but the euphoria after that one [the goal against Monaghan], I don’t think it’s been matched.
“I probably always felt I was lucky to get playing for Fermanagh. When I was younger I didn’t think I would get the opportunity, there were a few years where I was going to trials and didn’t get picked. I was 22-23 when I came onto the squad, maybe thinking it was a wee bit late, so any year I was here I was going to try and make the most of it.
“As time goes on you’re maybe thinking you don’t have too many years left, so the opportunity to take time out never really came into my thinking. There’s not much point taking time out now because you don’t have too many years left.”
